timaeus222

Well, this is produced well, but the arrangement has little variation to my ears. Also, the dynamics are relatively flat, even in a trance remix. Keep working at it bro.

Well, this isn't electro (it's atmospheric then shifts to drum & bass), but I recognize the source tune. This isn't unrecognizable. You just use the first four notes often. Cool.

Hm... this does sound fuller, spatially, but is that bass starting at 0:29 sidechained? It feels like it's sustained for a long period of time, rather than leaving some room for the leads to breathe. Also, while widening the stereo image is good, if you widen everything, it's almost like narrowing everything; anything that overlaps in the stereo field will blur the notes together, so try to leave things in their own space. At 1:51, IMO, the wide bass can be automated to be narrower, and the electro house wobble basses can be wider instead. It's up to you what you pick to be wide there, but I think picking the wobble basses will make it feel fuller in comparison to now. I like the lead at 2:19. Nice and expressive. I'm glad that I can hear it up above everything else. The lead guitar sounds a little bit better, but it's good to know you're gonna look at it some more! =) Getting closer! The only other thing I'll say right now is to make sure the source usage is more than 50%. I think there's a lot of original sections, but I wouldn't be sure if it's too much unless I check.

Yeah, the issue with the cohesiveness is probably my major concern. Instead of going through one source tune and then proceeding straight to the next, I would actually suggest going through part of one of them, then part of the other. Maybe you could even overlap them smartly (EX: change a few notes to match harmonies, use one as the bass and one as the lead, trading back and forth a melody in a source between two distinctly different instruments, etc.). The goal is to make it sound like one singular remix, so that if someone who didn't listen to the source tunes, they would either not be able to tell which source comes in when, or perhaps they could think, "source 1 came in. Oh wait, now source 2 is playing. Woah, source 1 just came back. Cool, source 2 is back again!". Don't be afraid of straying away from the source tunes' structures, or even adding your own countermelodies, counterpoint, or arpeggios! Ultimately it's up to you how you do it, but those are my suggestions.

While the drums are pretty good, the snare could come through a lil more, and the cymbal at 1:27 is more lofi than the rest of the drums. Also, maybe personal preference but I think the cymbal 0:17 and 2:29 could fade out faster. Good job overall. I could hear source throughout, and it seems cohesive.

The growls are too resonant in the upper mids, and the kick needs more low end punch. It's mostly the click coming through right now. At 2:02, the brass is a little too buried. It also sounds like the guitars are a little too loud and rolled off on the highs a tiny little bit. Man, the entrance into 3:56 was not strong, which confirms that earlier comment on the guitar treble. You had that strong snare, and then it can clearly be heard that the treble is rolled off quite a bit there, which undermines the implied strength. Not to mention the kick and snare are buried here, which makes it seem muddier than it actually is. This last thing is personal preference, but I think the parts that have the growls bleeding into the melodic vocals coming in can have the growls fading out just a little bit faster to make the melodic vocals more audible earlier. Nice ambience with the fading-out growls though. This sounds good man. It just needs some more EQ work to tame the resonances on the growls and to strengthen the kick and snare; volume fixing to let the brass come through and bring the guitars down just a tiny bit (0.4~1.0dB); a brighter mix overall; and some less pumping master compression. The limiter is being pushed quite hard on the bass heavy sections.

What plugin did you use for the spectral display effect? Is it compatible with Sony Vegas?

The arrangement has some major holes. 0:00 - 2:20 is obviously happy, while 2:20 - 4:08 is darker, so there's a split mood that makes the medley aspect stick out. e.g. This doesn't sound cohesive remix, but two remixes each of separate moods linked together. Also, you never really revisit the other theme; you just have coverage of one, then the other, then that's all that happens. OCR's policy says that medleys should feel cohesive, as if they were one singular remix. 0:57 - 1:23 and 1:55 - 2:20 are exactly the same. You can do more than just copying and pasting that 26 seconds. Try varying up the notes (even if you try changing the instruments by themselves, it isn't quite enough to differentiate two copy-pastes). That said, the production also has room for improvement. The drums are pretty buried behind the guitars and strings, as are the choir, harp (?), etc. This is also compressed a good deal, so there's some light pumping going on from overcompression, especially at 2:23. Overall, the production sounds partially between full and low-end-heavy, and more towards the low-end-heavy side. This is a good start, but ultimately I think there are grounds for rejection based on repetition and cohesiveness.

I find the near-hard-panning throughout awkward, as if you wanted to do so simply to separate sounds. You could just do some stereo shaping to widen particular sounds and narrow certain sounds with stereo reduction. Instruments should be placed in the stereo field in a sensible way, rather than in a way that accomplishes the end you want. The bass starting at 0:28 may not actually be muddy, but it would probably sound muddy to many people, including me. It's one of those cases where it's not mixed optimally for everyone, just you and people with the 'best' systems. It'll help to use a clearer bass that'll be more universally clear. Some sound effects like the thunderstorm at 1:22 are nice, but sound narrow. Nice dulcimer. The electro house bass at 1:50-2:19 sounds very narrow too. Widen it, and it'll sound fuller. Of course, then you'd have to re-pan the arps, but those don't necessarily have to be *that* wide, so I think that can work. Also, the lead guitar at 3:12 sounds too sequenced. Too many portamentos. Try adding in pitch bends with pitch wheel and perhaps tapping mode for the fast runs. Sounds like Shreddage II, so if it is, try making use of the string selection engine too, so you can make the fret hand range realistic and the note intervals natural. The arrangement is good. Overall, the stereo field is just wonky IMO, and the guitar can be more realistic. Here's an electro house reference. Good work so far.

I don't hear that much overcompression anymore! Now, it may just come off as my opinion, but I think the brass is several steps up above the strings in terms of sequencing realism. It may help to layer spiccato on top of staccato or some other layering combination to get those short string notes stronger (I'd rather not suggest compressing them for loudness).

Nice contrast of grungy/wobbly and breakbeat elements with some percolating arps and bendy saw leads. 3:35 - 3:50 was probably my favorite part.

Hm. The arrangement is a bit quirky, but I like it. I suppose the mallets could be kind of a reference to Chrono Trigger and could be the way this links back to the source name. Interesting instrument combinations.

Smooth lead interplay throughout! =D

Nice long breakdown section. I thought the lead was a bit buried at 0:55, but that's not a big deal. Nice job. =)

The mechanical rhythm guitar strumming and piano sequencing. If you don't have a guitar sample library, it's kinda hard to get rid of the machine-gun effect. The piano is easier to fix. Just add more variance to the velocities (slightly increase the deviation magnitude from each other, but not randomly. Slightly lower the quieter velocities), partially overlap the notes, and very slightly offset the note start-timings. This could be helpful to hear the difference between entirely humanized piano and not. https://app.box.com/s/vg1qxcnbc1wx6vpdmrm4

Limiter No. 6 Reviews MLimiter Reviews Elatua Limiter seems good, as it can do M/S limiting too, though it's apparently 90 euros. ThrillseekerVBL is free, so it couldn't hurt to try it. It looks great and had a lot of technical know-how behind its programming.

Soft-clipping: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/522822-post2.html Similar to soft knee limiting, but more tolerant, I believe. I actually prefer soft knee limiting because I find it a good balance between hard knee and soft clipping. Lets me mix loudly without overcompression. This is probably the piece of info I found most useful to illustrating what I just said above. The "secret" to mixing loudly: So, in short, my recommendation is TLs-Pocket Limiter. Free, simple, effective.

I still need to make a template too, but I still need to process my strings until I like them, and mix-and-match with EWQL.

Man, this is slick! Awesome square bass and other chiptunes. I also like the occasional drops in the rhythm. That cello blends right in. The string trio breakdown was cool, and actually doesn't feel out of place. Very nice!

I'd just say the nice thing I think of and say downplayed nitpicks (I've been doing that since the new year started). Let's both do it. If we have something nice to say, why not say it? =D

Since you're talking transitional, you *can* use a cymbal as a distinction between sections, but leading up to a new section, you could use snare rolls, tom rolls, reverse cymbals, risers, other types of reverses (I feel like reversed kicks or snares are most commonly overlooked as possibilities), etc. By risers, I mean something like any of these, or others that I haven't listed: - resonant FM filter modulation (a bubbly pitch rising-esque sound) - Filter LFO with an upward-modulating envelope on the LFO rate on, say, white noise or some other medium - white/pink noise band pass/low pass filter sweep (you've done this before) - a simple volume envelope/automation on a sound you find interesting for the context. EX: an inharmonic bell, a glassy FM sound (an FM oscillator acting as a carrier placed in serial with an FM oscillator acting as the modulator creates these two types of sounds), etc. - a relatively long sound of any sort that makes sense, reversed.

An easier approach could be to just EQ down the treble a bit with a shelving EQ (e.g. limit-to-growth-style curve). Or, you could try some very light chorusing to blend the harmonics together a little, which could make harsh frequencies more pleasant. The main purpose of reverb is to let the instrument fit in the mix and sound natural, like the natural ambience in a room, but if you make the instrument sound more pleasant before it hits the reverb application (e.g. dry signal), you shouldn't have to raise the wet signal or lower the dry signal in the reverb to fix harshness. The basic premise of transient shaping is that it is like sculpting a sound. All things have form, and similarly, all sounds have an associated waveform (<-- this is of a cymbal). A transient shaper's purpose is to adjust the length of the sound (the sustain), starting at a certain moment in time after that the sound has played (the attack, basically controlling the nearness of the sound), and optionally boost the sound's loudness (via the gain). With this you can either make a sound tighter or longer, and it's up to you what sounds good to you in certain contexts, though in some cases it may sound out of place. i.e. ambient music doesn't call for dubsteppish snares with long sustains. The reason why I say this is a suggestion and not necessary (but helpful) is that many 'good' transient shapers are commercial. My favorite is Transient Master from Native Instruments ($99). Some free ones are Transient, dominion, and Bittersweet III. I haven't tried the second two yet, but I think I'll try them later too.

Now, don't be too hard on yourself---this arrangement is actually really great. It flows well, and it has some nice change-ups.

This feels empty. It's lacking some sort of harmony to add to the main body of the soundscape. All you have is bassy, leading, and a little percussion up until 1:37. In fact, 1:37 - 1:59 is quite good. If you can fill in the soundscape in other places in a similar way, whether by production means (reverb + mixing loudly yet in a controlled way) or by adding more instruments for harmony/filler/padding, it'll be much more cohesive. Also, this arrangement needs more direction. The drums seem to be doing their own thing at times, and at other times they fit. I'm liking the ending at 4:01 - 4:51. Just needs some fine-tuning on the mechanical piano there (especially the right hand) and maybe the mixing if you think it's necessary.

Holy crap, I'd be pissed to get Bingo Highway as the other source---no offense if it was your source, but wow, it's just fast trance with insanely dissonant chip sounds. xD As for the actual remix, I'm finding the strings to be a little weak on the sequencing side. On one hand, they're falling behind the rhythm, and on the other, the notes that were meant to be emphasized for the action aesthetic seem relatively close in intensity to the other notes. i.e. The velocities are relatively flat at times. Also, there's definitely some overcompression throughout caused by the cinematic percussion. The arrangement is ambitious, and it's pretty cool. I do hear the sources, so I don't think this is too liberal. I hope to see this polished up!